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Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos - 2012 Honor Book

Sugar has left a bloody trail through human history. Cane--not cotton or tobacco--drove the bloody Atlantic slave trade and took the lives of countless Africans who toiled on vast sugar plantations under cruel overseers. And yet the very popularity of sugar gave abolitionists in England the one tool that could finally end the slave trade. This book traces the history of sugar from its origins in New Guinea around 7000 B.C. to its use in the 21st century to produce ethanol.

Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition by Karen Blumenthal

For more than a decade starting in 1920, millions of regular Americans ignored the law of the land. Parents became bootleggers, kids smuggled illegal alcohol, and outlaws became celebrities. It wasn't supposed to be that way, of course. When Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the sale and manufacture of alcohol in the United States, supporters believed it would create a better, stronger nation. Instead it began an era of lawlessness, when famous gangsters like Al Capone rose to fame, and many reconsidered their concept of right and wrong. This is the story of those years in American history-- the story of prohibition.

Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) by Sue Macy

Explore the role the bicycle played in the women's liberation movement.